


The Powerful Vampire Women of Mystic Falls (pt 1)

by persephone20



Series: the Haunted series [3]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 03:46:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3473261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone20/pseuds/persephone20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU series that follows events from 1X19 to 1X22, written from Katherine's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Powerful Vampire Women of Mystic Falls (pt 1)

**Author's Note:**

> I just read an article that states Pearl and Anna had to be killed off to make way for leading lady Katherine at the end of season one. And, in part, I agree with that. But what if I didn't?

Katherine lies in wait, biding her time. It's been one hundred and fifty years since she returned to Mystic Falls--one doesn't rush back to their mistakes--but a phone call about Pearl brought her back. Imagine her interest when she hears about not just one, but two of the Salvatore brothers salivating over one of her descendants: Elena Gilbert. 

Nevermind the fact that Elena hasn't even got the power to Compel them. That shock and displeasure's already been experienced and put away. Now she spends her time watching the 17 year old human girl through narrowed eyes, memorising her movements, the gestures, the way she styles her hair. Fodder for a new mind game to play on the old Salvatore brothers. 

At least, that was the plan, until Jonathan Gilbert--Elena's father and erstwhile vampire hunter--starts sniffing around the house where Pearl and Anna live. She can't have that. Unwanted attention before she's ready to make her move needs to be stifled. 

It's quick. Far quicker than he deserves. Katherine speeds from the window around the house until she's behind him. Jonathan barely has time for a turn of his head, the beginning of a question--"Elena? What are--?"--before Katherine takes his head in her hands and twists his neck. He crumples to the ground and Katherine smiles. It's easy to do. By his very name, he's hateable. And also, this way it's one less problem for her to have to think about. 

She turns her head over her left shoulder and casually looks around. But of course Pearl and Anna live on the edge of town. There's no one out here unless they're one of her vampires, or a human with a death wish. 

Pearl comes to the door, opens it from the other side while Katherine's still standing there. If not for her, Pearl would be dead right now. She sees the other vampire's gaze lower to the ground, where Jonathan's crossbow has fallen to the ground right next to his body. Pearl's only reaction is a raise of her eyebrows, her expression as bland as Katherine's is cheeky. 

"We'll need to get someone to dispose of that," Pearl says, voicing her only concern. 

"I'll get Jed to do it," Katherine says, waving a hand carelessly as she names one of the vampires who came here with her. 

Pearl nods just once. Then, "You should probably come inside. If Jonathan Gilbert was here, someone else might come to look for him."

It was a sensible enough suggestion, but Katherine doesn't feel like being told what to do. "I think I'll go find Elena," she says instead, wondering how her younger self is going to take her father's sudden, unexpected death. 

Despite her aim, it's not Elena that Katherine finds first, but Damon. He's sitting in a field of daisies far too close to Pearl and Anna's--and her--house for comfort. But as Katherine steps back behind a tree and trains her eyes on him, she gauges that it's not Jonathan Gilbert's vendetta that's brought him here. No, she says, watching the dejected tilt of his shoulders as he kicks flower heads from their stems. 

Katherine's lips curve in an indulgent smile. It's flattering, in a way, seeing him so... what? As highly as she thinks of herself, even Katherine didn't pause to think that Damon would hold his torch for her for over a century, sight unseen. But then he comes back to Mystic Falls, the homeplace of their own love in 1864, and wants nothing more than to repeat the cycle with her doppelgänger. Something about his air of despondency roots her to the place as he slowly moves out of sight and back towards the town centre. He's always been beautiful, she thinks. He can't help it that he's even more beautiful when utterly miserable. 

**

Death follows the girl around like a bad smell, like the Salvatore brothers. Since it's impossible to find her alone, it's a good thing Katherine's learned to be careful in her advanced years. 

Her search for Elena doesn't lead her to the family home she shares with Jeremy and Jenna. Oh yes, Katherine's been around long enough to have a couple of conversations with both family members who don't know better than to mistake a vampire for their own kin. Only Alaric Saltzman gives her pause. He doesn't really count, though; he's not family. 

The Salvatore boarding house is just as easy to get inside of, now that there are no human occupants living within. How convenient for her. She sees from the interactions between them how Elena battles with loving two brothers, with the way she looks, and with the way that there seems no way for her to escape the path that Katherine set before her. She watches Elena twist back and forth like some sort of a small rodent in a trap; every movement causing her to become more trapped in a tableaux that was established before she was born. 

But, if Katherine's honest, she's also watching from a deep sense of nostalgia at what it might have been like between her and Stefan and Damon if not for the historical Battle at Willow Creek. She wouldn't have been conflicted about it, of course, and she would have Compelled Stefan and Damon out of the same. 

Knowing the Gilbert men family penchant for vampires, Katherine comes up with the idea that Anna crosses Jeremy's path and sees what happens. It's a plan made quietly between the two women. Anna likes the idea of being seen as mature enough to handle a potentially dangerous plan, and the fact that Pearl would advise against it just makes Anna more determined to go ahead with it. 

Unfortunately, Anna is more like her mother than she knows. Just as Pearl fell in love with Jonathan Gilbert in 1864, Anna falls in love with Jeremy Gilbert. But there's no love lost between Anna and Elena, especially after Elena makes her feel so unwelcome in her house. 

"What, she can invite two vampires into the house, but her brother can't?" Anna snipes quietly to Katherine about Elena when Pearl isn't around. She takes pleasure in it, and doesn't seem to make the mistake of so many others of confusing Katherine with Elena. "She tortures herself about you," Anna says. "Elena can't just enjoy the time she has with either Stefan or Damon without poisoning it with thoughts of you. She's doing some of your work for you."

Anna's smirk gets a superior look from Katherine. She doesn't ask whether Anna thinks Stefan, Damon or the others suspect her infiltration. She knows Pearl's girl better than that. 

"They think I'm just one of the 'tomb vampires'," Anna advises her one day with a roll of her eyes. "How original a label is that?"

When Anna slyly suggests they bring Jeremy in on their plan, Katherine knows that she's speaking with the eyes of the lovesick girl Katherine never quite allowed herself to be. She knows from experience the closeness of siblings; that however much Jeremy swears he can't stand his sister for keeping the secret of vampires, for letting Damon Compel him, Jeremy would never actively work against Elena in aid of Katherine. 

**

Ultimately, it's the sense of nostalgia for the Salvatore brothers as well as practicality that decides Katherine on the way she's going to appear in Elena's life. She walks up to her in the middle of the day, in plain sight. Her legs are clad in blue jeans, her feet in ankle boots. Only her hair is different, because it looks ridiculous to heat all of the body out of such beautiful hair as both of them have. It looks lanky and limp. When she's impersonating Elena it's one thing, but she won't lower herself to that particular vanity without reason. 

Elena recognises her immediately. How not? Katherine's face is as bright and sunny as Elena's is dark. She revels in Elena's discomfort, knowing that this is just the start of it. 

"You already know who I am," she says, crossing her arms in a mimic she's picked up from all those hours watching Elena. She watches as Elena's eyes widen, then determinedly narrow. "I'm impressed."

"Don't be," Elena replies, her voice so strong, so don't-fuck-with-me that Katherine considers under other circumstances that the two of them could have made quite a team. 

But Katherine's never going to accept competition as a companion. "Now, down to business," she snaps, all fondness and idle could-have-beens vanishing from her voice. It's going to be Katherine's way or no way at all, and Elena's going to have to learn quickly if she's going to survive this game. "You want to save your vampire boys..." Which is convenient, as it's the single point where Elena and Katherine's interests converge. 

"And Anna," Elena demands, surprising Katherine if only because it's something she's not come prepared for. She's going to have to watch little Anna, she realises, and dislikes Elena all the more for it because it makes her distrustful of Pearl as well. 

"Anna?" Katherine waves a hand before her flippantly, an attempt to distract Elena on how much two simple words from her has shaken her. "Anna's still around? And Anna. Can you guess what I want in return?"

She can. Katherine can see it immediately in the guarded gaze Elena gives her. Katherine can't help a delighted grin. She's imagined this conversation, the many ways that it can go, the many ways that she can convince Elena to willingly relinquish her hold on the boys. Either of them. Both of them. It's entirely up to Katherine's whim how much she wants to take from this usurper all at once. Katherine decides she'll take Stefan first. She's curious to see if Elena's relationship with Damon will stand up without Stefan around. 

And in the end, it takes so little. A puny threat against the Salvatore brothers' lives; as if she would just destroy what she had made all those years ago. But Elena believes it. Stefan and Damon have spent so much time no doubt telling her what a monster Katherine was that Elena's willing to believe anything Katherine tells her. 

"Just save them," Elena says, more than a little desperately.

And Katherine nods, gracious now. After all, she's already got everything she ever wanted. "Of course," she says, refraining from a little, mocking curtsy. "All you had to do was ask."


End file.
